Photo/Illutration Eggs produced by Akita Foods Co. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The farm ministry has disciplined six bureaucrats who were wined and dined by an egg industry official involved in a separate bribery scandal that has ensnared a former agriculture minister.

Masaaki Edamoto, the top career bureaucrat in the ministry, was among the six who received pay cuts or warnings.

On two separate occasions, the bureaucrats had dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo that cost more than 20,000 yen ($190) each. Yoshiki Akita, the former head of Akita Foods Co., an egg producer based in Hiroshima Prefecture, picked up the tabs each time.

According to the farm ministry announcement on Feb. 25, Takamori Yoshikawa attended the first dinner party in October 2018 soon after he became farm minister, as well as the second one in September 2019, just after he left the post.

Yoshikawa was indicted in January this year on charges of receiving bribes from Akita Foods. Akita has also been indicted in the case on charges of bribing Yoshikawa.

At the time of the dinner parties, Edamoto was director-general of the ministry’s Agricultural Production Bureau, while the other participants were either division heads or higher.

The bureaucrats said they thought Yoshikawa paid for the meals, which each cost between 22,000 yen and 23,000 yen, because he had invited them to come along.

But when the farm ministry asked officials of Akita Foods about the dinners, they said that Akita paid for everything on his credit card.

The disciplinary measures were handed down because the bureaucrats violated the National Public Service Ethics Code for receiving benefits from a policy stakeholder, officials said. They were also faulted for not confirming who was paying for the meals.

Edamoto, Masakazu Mizuta, the current director-general of the Agricultural Production Bureau, and Keiji Fushimi, the deputy director-general of the Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau, had their salaries cut by 10 percent for one month. Three lower-ranking officials received warnings.

A seventh bureaucrat who attended the dinners has since retired from the farm ministry and was not disciplined.

Farm minister Kotaro Nogami voluntarily returned one month’s salary and also apologized at the Feb. 25 news conference.

He indicated that he was not planning any personnel changes, saying he hoped those disciplined would carry out their duties while being fully aware of what they did.

In the bribery scandal, Akita, who is no longer with the company, is believed to have given cash to Yoshikawa in return for favors concerning government policy to help the egg and poultry industry.

(This article was written by Noriyuki Kaneta and Shinya Takagi.)

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